


Under the Bridge

by kungfuwaynewho



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-27
Updated: 2012-05-27
Packaged: 2017-11-06 03:20:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,596
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/414150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kungfuwaynewho/pseuds/kungfuwaynewho
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A few months after the Battle of Hogwarts, Harry makes Draco an offer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Under the Bridge

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fushiforever](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=fushiforever).



Once, when Draco had entered a room, he hadn't bothered to see who else was already there. He hadn't worried about names, families, houses. He had never walked – he had sauntered, head held high, laughter on his lips, and if that laughter was always cruel and thin, well, he hadn't known any better. That was the way things had always been, and that was the way they would always be. Isn't that what his father had always told him?

But things had changed. The war was over, and now when Draco entered a room, he did so with a momentary stab of indecision, sometimes even fear. Who would be inside? Friends? Not likely – he still seemed equally loathed as a turncoat, coward, and mistakenly-pardoned criminal all at the same time, depending on who was looking at him with a sneer. Where once he had been greeted by blanching faces, downcast eyes, nervous smiles, ingratiating babble, now Draco was met by open hostility more often than not.

Today was no different. These days he went out as little as possible, but necessities piled up until he had no choice but to take care of them. Down Diagon Alley he went, darting in and out of shops as quickly as possible. No loitering, no dawdling. Once, he had taken great pleasure in walking through establishments as though he owned them, feeling the warm security of his name and house behind him. Now his only pleasure was making it home unscathed. They said the war was in the past, peace and tranquility for all – but not for all, oh no. Not if you had fought on the wrong side, willingly or not. Draco couldn't lie to himself – it had not been wholly unwillingly, not at all – but he had still been a child. A child! Didn't that count for anything?

Not if the scowls that greeted him were any indication. Why then did he stop for a drink? Foolishness, he supposed. Some days he had this sense that enough time had passed that things would maybe go back to normal. A premonition of sorts, one felt more in the gut than in the brain. Father would mock such a thing, but Draco thought perhaps Mother understood. But when he walked through the door of the pub, there were no welcoming smiles. No one scooted aside to make room for him. Draco saw only dull glares, hard, shiny eyes peering at him over mugs of dragon ale and butterbeer. For a moment a flicker of anger burned bright, from his stomach to his throat; his fingers itched for the wand tucked securely in his coat. He had to gnash his teeth together, the urge to curse the lot of them so strong in that instant that he feared he might go mad from it. _Don't forget your aunt_ , Mother had warned him for as long as he could remember. Wrath should be a bed of coals, black on top, white-hot underneath; never let it grow into a wild fire, because fire could so easily slip out of even the most experienced wizard's control. He had seen that first-hand, in the most literal of ways.

The anger departed before he had even made it over to the bar, leaving that curiously empty numbness he had grown all too accustomed to. Draco ordered a shot of whiskey, something that would bite and tear as it went down, then retreated to a dark table in the corner. Those flinty eyes followed him. Keeping tabs, he supposed. No one had ever really trusted him ( _except for Him, He had trusted you, but you failed, didn't you?_ ), and that seemed likely never to change. Draco resolutely spread his paper out on the table in front of him and kept his head down, his shoulders hunched forward, his face carefully blank. No trouble here, that's what that pose was meant to say, and since the mutters died down, and he could almost feel the dark gazes turn away, he figured it worked.

A few minutes of quiet. Draco had always liked this bar, even when he had been too young to enter – though he had, of course, and no one had ever turned him away. No windows, few lights; mostly just the lumpy stubs of candles. It could be any time of the day in here, no matter when one walked inside. It could be no time at all. He read the articles on the front page – _Hogwarts repairs nearing completion! Shacklebolt appointed permanent Minister of Magic!_ – and did his best to ignore the dull headache settling in around his temples.

A clamor at the door, and Draco looked up. For a moment, all he could tell was that someone had entered. Nearly everyone in the bar, including the barkeep, had rushed up to greet whomever it was with shouts and cheers, and so much vigorous handshaking that Draco couldn't help but worry that the newcomer might lose an arm. The the crowd parted enough to reveal the short, slender man who had entered, a man who cheerily spoke to each and every person clustered around him, a man who laughed as he polished his glasses on his shirt, a man who seemed to drink up the attention like an elixir.

Potter. He might have known.

Draco polished off the whiskey, hoping to slide out the back unseen, but footsteps came his way as he folded up the paper, and he knew that he hadn't been quick enough. “Malfoy,” he said, in a tone much different from the one he'd used at Hogwarts, but Draco cared for it no better. 

“Just leaving, Potter,” he said brusquely, but Potter put a hand on his arm just long enough to stay his retreat. _I hate the bugger, I really do_ , he thought, but he sat back down anyway. Let him say whatever it was he wanted to say and be done with it. Maybe the others would see. Maybe they'd think that if Potter had spoken to him, then all was forgiven – or at least forgotten. 

“I haven't seen you much since...” Potter trailed off, waving his hand lazily in the air. _Since the war ended. Since the Battle of Hogwarts was won. And you were not the winner_. “How are you, Draco?”

“And why should you care?” he couldn't help but say, his lip curling up despite himself. Potter didn't even blink, those green eyes never leaving his. Was it possible that he had become even more insufferably arrogant? Though Draco supposed it made sense. Potter was the grand hero, after all. The bravest, the greatest, the strongest. He had defeated He Who Had Never Been Defeated. He had done so twice.

“You're not going back to finish your last year, are you?” The tone of his voice was pleasant, even warm. Draco mistrusted it, wondering what Potter's gambit was. He just shook his head, fingers finding the shot glass, wishing it wasn't empty. If he had to keep talking to The Boy Who Triumphed, The Boy Who Won, then by God, he needed another drink. “A job, then?” Potter pressed.

Once, Draco would have been able to lie. The falsehood would have dripped off his tongue like honey. He would have been charming and smug, turning words into something that bit, that stung. Now he found himself mutely shaking his head again, shame settling over his shoulders with a heavy weight. “Ron and I have a flat together,” Potter said, and he jotted something down on the corner of Draco's paper. “We're putting something together for Kingsley...er, Minister Shacklebolt.” Draco rolled his eyes, but Potter continued, undeterred. “Why don't you stop by sometime?”

Draco stared at those green eyes, looking for any sign of artifice, of malice, but he saw none. Was Potter offering him a job? It seemed absurd. Yet it made sense. Potter always looked for ways to put others in his debt. Why else would he have testified on Mother's behalf, telling the world about her little lie? Now the Malfoy family owed Potter such a debt that there was no way they would ever be able to repay it. The very thought of it rankled Draco. How could he accept anything else from the man? Before too long, Potter would think he owned him, complete and entire.

 _Take your job and your favors and everything else and shove it up your arse_ , he wanted to say, but just as he drew in a breath to speak, Draco found himself struck dumb. Potter just waited, patient, face still warm and open. No one besides Mother had looked at him that way in months. Draco dropped his eyes to the table, unable to bear it a moment longer.

“I'll think about it,” he finally managed to say. He sensed more than saw Potter nod, and he didn't look up when Potter stood and made his way back to the front of the bar, shaking hands again as he went. Draco waited for the crowd to thin out, and then he left out the back, taking care to stick the paper inside his coat. There was a cool, drizzling rain outside, and he didn't want Potter's address to run.

That night, walking from one end of the house to another, thinking of nothing in particular, Draco realized that Potter hadn't ordered a drink. Nothing to eat, either. He hadn't stopped to speak more than a few words to anyone else. He had, apparently, come in just to speak to Draco.

Despite himself, he smiled.


End file.
